01 September, 2006

A Bit About My Pussy

When I was fifteen I had a cat. Actually I had about a dozen cats (we lived in the country), but Cookie was my favourite. He was a fat ol' tom that I raised from a kitten. He and I would lounge together and contemplate life. I even had him in one of my Senior pictures. Yes. I realise that makes me halfway between insane and insaner. But I figured the cheerleaders posed with pompoms, the basketball players all held a ball and a couple guys were leaning against the hoods of their prized cars. So what if I wanted my beloved cat in a picture? Clearly it was a bad idea since I'm still apologising for it eighteen years later.

One Saturday morning shortly before I graduated my mother and younger brother sat down with me at the kitchen table. They tearfully explained that when they had been out driving earlier that morning, they found Cookie. In the middle of the road. Not alive. Since they knew I had an appointment and would be leaving shortly, they felt it was kinder to clean up his remains and bury him. I shouldn't, they figured, have to see my beloved pet ground into the pavement on State Road 1. Valiantly my mother stopped the traffic on the busy road while my brother collected my cat's body. I don't know which was worse--that, or having to tell me about it.

I spent most of the morning in tears, breaking down repeatedly at SuperCuts. No woman giving someone a haircut for eight dollars should have to put up with the amount of wailing I was doing. I hope I tipped her well, but I can't recall. I cried most of that day and most of Sunday. On Monday it was a prayer request in homeroom.

So naturally we were all freaked out a week later when the still-alive cat showed up at the garage door and meowed to be let inside.

There are two ways to look at this. Either there were a lot of fat black and white tomcats in Northern Indiana in 1988 or cats really do have nine lives. Then again, it might have been a miracle.

I kind of feel like that this morning. I've cried and cried for Casey at just about every possible place. The grocery store. The movies. Mothership BBQ. And the x-ray results show that his bone is actually healing. Which means the vet is backing off his "maybe cancer" and now saying "probably infection." As he told me while paying for my dog drugs--"cancer doesn't get better. His bone is getting better." Having not one but two pets' lives extended makes me believe that maybe there are tiny miracles. Thanks to all who've prayed and wished us well. Who knows? Maybe I'm going to be able to watch Animal Planet without breaking down now.

First of all, let me say how glad I am to hear that your dog may be on the mend. I do believe that collective hope and prayer can work miracles.

But on a snarkier note (and I hope you wouldn't expect less from me), to reward all of us who are sending our good thoughts to you and your canine family, you absolutely have to post that Senior/cat picture.

And on the snarkiest note of all, I think I may have spotted your cat in a Stuckey's in northern Alabama.

Ceee, if I had any idea where that picture even was anymore, I'd scan it and post it. I assume my mom has it laying around in a shoebox somewhere. Maybe that will be my post-Christmas gift to the blogosphere.

Because frankly I can think of few things as sad as that picture. And the cat is the least-sad of all of it.

I dunno. Maybe it's the Orphan-Annie perm. Or the sweater-dress. Who can say for sure!?